Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Bernie Sanders Releases Details on Health Plan That Would Raise Taxes but He Argues Save on Costs

"Under the plan, individuals making $250,000 to $500,000 annually would be taxed at a rate of 37 percent. The top rate, 52 percent, would apply to those earning $10 million or more a year, a category that in 2013 included only the 13,000 households in the United States.

""Universal health care is an idea that has been supported in the United States by Democratic presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman," Mr. Sanders said in a statement on Sunday night. "It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health care to all."" Read the article: Bernie Sanders Releases Details on Health Plan That Would Raise Taxes but He Argues Save on Costs by Yamiche Alcindor and Alan Rappeport, Jan. 17, 2016 The New York Times

Related articles:

"The promise of change, always a popular lure in politics, is at the heart of a striking paradox in the Democratic race. Democratic primary voters say that the ability to deliver needed change is the most important quality they seek in a candidate, and Mr. Sanders’s popularity is highest with voters who want change.

(...)"support for Mrs. Clinton lags in some groups of Democratic primary voters, particularly men and younger voters. Among the misgivings is one that has surfaced before in her political career: Fifty-two percent of Democratic primary voters think that Mrs. Clinton says what she actually believes, compared with 62 percent who think Mr. Sanders is genuine in his remarks.

(...)"While some Sanders allies worry that his decades-long identification as a democratic socialist will hurt him, 56 percent of Democratic primary voters say they hold a positive view of socialism. About nine in 10 think that the gap between rich and poor is an urgent problem, and most would support raising taxes on the wealthy to deal with it — one of Mr. Sanders’s major positions — and 78 percent oppose unlimited campaign contributions to fund-raising committees known as “super PACs,” as does Mr. Sanders. (Mrs. Clinton is supported by a such a fund-raising arm.)" Read the article: Poll Shows Hillary Clinton Is Seen as More Likely Than Bernie Sanders to Be Effective by Patrick Healy and Megan Thee-Brenan,
November 12, 2015 The New York Times

"Over the years, Sanders has tucked away funding for health centers in appropriation bills signed by George W. Bush, into Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and through the earmarking process. But his biggest achievement came in 2010 through the Affordable Care Act. In a series of high-stakes legislative maneuvers, Sanders struck a deal to include $11 billion for health clinics in the law." Read the article: GOP Officials Publicly Denounce Bernie Sanders’ Obamacare Expansion, Quietly Request Funding by Lee Fang, July 16, 2015 The Intercept